Image pickup apparatus

Abstract

An image pickup apparatus includes an image-pickup lens having an aperture diaphragm, an image-pickup element that has a color filter which is periodically allocated colors in units of a predetermined unit array and that generates picked-up image data including pixel data of colors using received light, the color filter being adjacent to a light receiving surface, a microlens array unit that is arranged on an image forming surface of the image-pickup lens and whose microlenses are each allocated a plurality of pixels of the image-pickup element, and an image processing unit that performs image processing on the picked-up image data generated by the image-pickup element. The image processing unit includes a parallax component image generation unit that generates a plurality of parallax component images and an interpolation processing unit that performs color interpolation processing for each of the parallax component images.

Description

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present invention contains subject matter related to Japanese Patent Application JP 2007-292843 filed in the Japanese Patent Office on Nov. 12, 2007, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus using a microlens array.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]Various image pickup apparatuses have been proposed and developed. Moreover, image pickup apparatuses that are designed to perform predetermined image processing on picked-up image data obtained by picking up an image and output the processed picked-up image data have been proposed.[0006]For example, an image pickup apparatus using a method called “Light Field Photography” is proposed in PCT Japanese Translation Patent Publication No. 06 / 039486 and “Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera” (Ren.Ng et al., Stanford T...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0020]In an image pickup apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, an image of a shooting subject obtained through the image pickup lens is formed on the microlens array unit. Light rays incident on the microlens array unit reach the image pickup element via the microlens array unit, and picked-up image data including information regarding directions in which the light rays propagate in addition to the position information of the light rays is obtained. Here, since the color filter that is periodically allocated a plurality of colors in units of a predetermined unit array is provided on the light receiving surface of the image pickup element, pixel data of a plurality of colors corresponding to the color arrangement of the color filter is obtained as the picked-up image data. In the picked-up image data obtained in this way, a plurality of parallax component images are each generated by extracting and combining pieces of pixel data that are arranged at the same position in the pixel areas corresponding to the microlenses. Here, since the information regarding the positions of light rays and the directions in which the light rays propagate are the same for adjacent pixels in each of the parallax component images, the information regarding the positions of the light rays and the directions in which the light rays propagate are maintained by performing color interpolation processing for each of the generated parallax component images. Moreover, since the color arrangement of a unit array of the color filter is the same as that of a unit array of the parallax component images, the color information regarding the picked-up image data obtained by the image pickup element is not lost.

[0021]According to an image pickup apparatus in an embodiment of the present invention, since a color filter that is periodically allocated colors in units of a predetermined unit array is provided adjacent to the light receiving surface of the image pickup element, the picked-up image data including information regarding positions of light rays and directions in which the light rays propagate can be treated as pixel data of a plurality of colors corresponding to the color arrangement of the color filter, the information being obtained by the image pickup element. Moreover, in an image processing unit, since parallax component images are each generated using pieces of pixel data arranged at the same position in pixel areas corresponding to microlenses. Thus, in the parallax component images, the positions of light rays and the directions in which the light rays propagate can be the same for adjacent pieces of pixel data. Thus, color interpolation processing can be performed while the information regarding the positions of the light rays and the directions in which the light rays propagate is appropriately maintained. Moreover, since there is no edge of an image formed in response to the shape of the aperture of an aperture diaphragm for every microlens in the parallax component images, appropriate color interpolation processing can be performed even on the pixel data corresponding to this edge. Here, the color arrangement of a unit array of the color filter is designed to be the same as that of a unit array of the parallax component images, and thus the color information regarding picked-up image data obtained by the image pickup element is not lost. Thus, appropriate color interpolation processing can be performed on the picked-up image data including the information regarding the propagation of light rays. This can prevent errors in brightness from occurring between a reconstructed image and an actual image, and can prevent the color balance from being lost.

Problems solved by technology

However, in this technology, when a color image is to be obtained using such a color filter described above, if color interpolation processing such as the demosaic processing is performed between adjacent pixels in the picked-up image data, the following problems may occur since light vectors are different between the adjacent pixels.

For example, if an image of an object which causes directivity in terms of light is picked up, interpolation processing is performed using data of pixels having different intensity distribution of light, and thus correct intensity distribution of light is not obtained.

Moreover, since light rays coming from different positions (objects) pass through a defocus surface, which is at an out-of-focus position, appropriate color interpolation processing is not performed.

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